When you run smbd -V on your Snow Leopard installation, you'll see it's running SAMBA version 3.0.28a-apple. While I'm not sure how much difference the "-apple" makes, version 3.0.28a is old. Very old. In other words, it's riddled with bugs. Apple hasn't updated SAMBA in 3 years, and for Lion, they're dumping it altogether for something homegrown. The reason? SAMBA is now GPLv3.

I just don't get it. In every talk about the GPL, there is always somebody raising the argument that Joe Sixpack does not care about the license. What is the point about Joe Sixpack exactly? What does Joe Sixpack have to do with or against the GPL?

It's not about Joe Sixpack. I'm not Joe SixPack. Joe Sixpack does not write software and does not distribute it. Joe Sixpack does not know what software patents and the GPL are and he does not have to.

Joe Sixpack buys a computer and does not understand why it can't interact with his smartphone and why he can't read the document he wrote some years ago with an old word processor. Joe Sixpack does not want to know why it does not work. He just want his damn computer to work.

Main reason for not wanting GPLv2/GPLv3 is companies wanting exclusive control over your machine. Lets take the apple store. Apple reserves the right to remove any application that conflicts for market with one of their applications.

Effective mean of this. If Apple makes a buggy application for ipad/iphone you cannot have competing product.

Anti tivo clause in GPLv3 also requires Apple to allow user to install newer version. Users want there computer to work. What are you going todo if Apple version of SMB protocal is buggy in your device worse part is Apple decides not to allow an update. So now you have to buy a new device.

GPLv3 is about protecting the User. From being forced to buy a new product just because apple/who ever decided not to update it. Yet third parties will be able to offer updates for those devices due to the anti-tivo clause.

The clause has no requirement to hand over the appstore key. Only a signing key that will allow the gplv3 software to work.

So yes gplv3 gives Joe Sixpack a better chance that his phone and computer can be made integrate due to the fact the device will have better odds of being able to get working updates one way or another.

So Joe SixPack has to choose between pleasant effective software and hardware systems from Apple today but subjects himself to the hypothetical danger that Apple might perform some nefarious act in the future. I think his choice is obvious, its no wonder the market has spoken quite loudly in Apple's favor.

So Joe SixPack has to choose between pleasant effective software and hardware systems from Apple today but subjects himself to the hypothetical danger that Apple might perform some nefarious act in the future. I think his choice is obvious, its no wonder the market has spoken quite loudly in Apple's favor.

Also Joe SixPack has spoken quite clearly for Android and MS Windows as well. Of course its simple to forget that.

Problem here with Apple app store I am not talking about hypothetical disagreements. There is already software missing from there due to possible competition to Apple products.

Really in a lot of areas Linux designs for desktop usage had not been bothered about. Linux world would caught on the back foot when the first Linux netbooks took off. Since then lot of work has been going on sorting out internal design issues.